Tuesday reader's view: Does contraception warrant public subsidy?

Published 9:16 am, Tuesday, March 27, 2012

With regard to national health care, the question we need to ask ourselves is:

1. Is this contraceptive medically necessary for the patient to treat a legitimately diagnosed medical condition?

If the answer to this is no, then it is being used not for medical necessity, but to exercise a personal lifestyle choice. If the latter is true, how does coverage of a personal lifestyle choice logically belong in national health care policy?

Is this a medically-driven or a politically-driven policy?

Does mass, all-inclusive and free access to contraceptives warrant public subsidy and the imposition of government mandate, even at the direct contradiction of explicit religious doctrine?

This is where we run into major conflict with Catholic and other faith traditions. Part of the moral objection of the Catholic Church stems from its understanding of human nature and the fact that widespread embrace of contraception in society would lead not simply to spacing of families by married couples, but to deliberate avoidance and sometimes destruction of family life, for less than moral purposes. And one must admit over the past 40-50 years, the effects of widespread contraception have not all been good, nor have they served a primarily medical purpose. Plus, incidence of abortion has not reduced.

To the contrary, it has increased exponentially, sometimes at government coercion. Just say “no” to this grievously ill-advised mandate, and rethink what national health care is all about.